News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Since its launch in 2020, a pioneering energy company called Quaise has attracted some serious attention for its audacious goal of diving further into Earth’s crust than anybody has dug before. Following the closure of first round venture capital funding, the MIT spin-off has now raised a total of US$63 million: a respectable start … Read more
An ancient sculpture carved by Paleolithic humans some 30,000 years ago is evidence that our ancestors were a restless bunch who roamed far and wide, new research has revealed. Scientists have peered closely at the famous Venus of Willendorf and determined that the stone from which it is carved likely originated from Northern Italy, … Read more
When a volcano in Tonga erupted on January 15, it gave satellites their first glimpse at a plume of volcanic ash shooting into the mesosphere, the third layer of Earth’s atmosphere. According to NASA, the Tonga event was the largest volcanic eruption since satellites began monitoring our planet. As the Pacific volcano shot a burst of ash … Read more
An asteroid discovered in the 19th century has just been identified as the most crowded we’ve ever found. It’s called 130 Elektra, or just Elektra for short, and astronomers have just discovered that it has not one, nor two, but three smaller satellite companions, or moons. That not only makes it the most numerous asteroid … Read more
Humpback whales can swim as far as 3,700 miles (5,955 kilometers) for the chance to mate, per a new study. Scientists analyzed a database of over 450,000 pictures of whales in the wild to track the animals. They found that some would swim thousands of miles during the mating season. Two distinctive males, which could be … Read more
Last year in August, a surprise tsunami in the South Atlantic Ocean mushroomed to distances over 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,000 miles) away, rippling through the North Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans. It was the first time a tsunami had been recorded in three different oceans since the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, … Read more
Scientists are on a mission to create a global network of atomic clocks that will enable us to, among other things, better understand the fundamental laws of physics, investigate dark matter, and navigate across Earth and space more precisely. However, to be at their most effective, these clocks will need to be reliably and … Read more
The Solar System may be an even soggier place than we suspected. New analysis of one of Saturn’s moons suggests that it may harbor a liquid ocean. No, not the usual suspects – the new culprit is Mimas, the little moon with a big crater, which gives it more than a passing resemblance to the … Read more
The Kingdom of Tonga doesn’t often attract global attention, but a violent eruption of an underwater volcano on January 15 has spread shock waves, quite literally, around half the world. The volcano is usually not much to look at. It consists of two small uninhabited islands, Hunga-Ha’apai and Hunga-Tonga, poking about 100 meters (328 … Read more
Earth and Jupiter don’t have a lot in common. One is relatively small, rocky, and habitable. The other is absolutely enormous, completely lacking in solidity, and raging with colossal storms. Yet, if you look at some satellite pictures of marine phytoplankton blooms here on Earth next to pictures of atmospheric turbulence at Jupiter’s poles, it … Read more